stuffed
by patriciaselina
Summary: ShinKumi   OC POV oneshot. For every person she loves she has a little stuffed animal in her collection to represent them, and the Kuroda clan is pleased that this means every one of them has a place in her heart.


**Title**: stuffed

**Series**: Gokusen

**Characters**: OC!Hoshi, Kumiko, Shin, and the rest of the Kuroda clan and some of class 3D/2-4

**Rating**: PG13 to be safe

**Genre**: Fluff. Or something.

**Warnings**: AN OC. Yes, you heard that, an OC. It's my first time writing for one outside of Hetalia, so…well, you are forewarned. Spoilers and inaccuracy, because while I have time to shamelessly write fanfic, I don't have enough Internet load to read the manga since the part I left off, which is…very far.

**Summary**: She is a little girl they saved and took in as their own. For every person she loves she has a little stuffed animal in her collection to represent them, and the Kuroda clan is pleased that this means every one of them has a place in her heart. Which is also why they are confused when one night, she adds another animal – a person who has been a part of their family for so long now, that she couldn't get how her big sister never gets it. Oneshot.

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><p>There is a little makeshift shrine in the sprawling Japanese compound. The little girl had insisted that her frivolousness should not be left somewhere where it would get in the way of the people who had to pass by it, but the elder had simply chuckled and said that nonsense, he kept it there because he wanted to see how his little 'granddaughter' thought about their family all the time.<p>

The little girl – she remembered nothing about herself, still, except that her name was Hoshi, a star – fussed and fussed and said that she didn't want to get in the way, that she didn't want anyone else to be disturbed by the collection of stuffed animals on the lacquered piece of wood she had bought for the sole purpose of keeping them together. The mistress of the house – oh, right, Ojou-sama told her to call her "onee-san", now didn't she? – had laughed boisterously with her underlings (…they were "onii-sama", weren't they) and said that it was alright, that she was adorable beyond belief and that Hoshi-chan didn't need to worry because we're a family now, remember?

Family was a word so far from Hoshi's vocabulary that she even doubted that she even had one, before. From what she remembered before her memory of the past went black, she had been crying and crying and crying, and the walls of the room she had been left in were so dark that when she closed her eyes or not it didn't seem to matter anymore. She had heard shouting, and thumps of some heavy things falling to the ground, bumping against the walls, and she had squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the worst – whatever that worst was, she could not recall – then the door opened and there she was, dark dark hair trailing behind her, eyes wide in concern, the stripes of the kimono she wore reminding her of a tiger, but this tiger was not going to eat her, not at all, because she had scooped her up from the floor and brought her out into the moonlight, pressing her lips to the younger girl's hair and telling her that it would be all right now, that she was going to be free now.

It had been months since that incident, and even though she tried her best to block it out of her memory, she could still remember that dark night and her soon-to-be big sister's tiger kimono. It was no surprise, then, when the first one of her stuffed animals was a tiger. Hoshi had fashioned out glasses from wire and had tied the excess fur it had on the scruff of its neck with ribbons. Ojo…Kumiko-onee-sama, had smiled and said that she was such a wonderful little sister. It was the first time that anybody had ever seen Hoshi smile.

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><p>She likes this guy; this student of Kumiko-oneesama's who always comes by to visit. He is quiet, and his eyes look like they can pierce through someone's soul, and his hair is red and long and he's probably the most amusing thing she's ever seen in her life. For one, Grandfather seems to like him – a lot – and Uncle Kyo calls him "Red Lion", which is amusing but it fits no less.<p>

And, another thing about this guy: the looks he gives Hoshi's big sister when he thinks nobody's watching remind her of those men she sees on the television when they're watching another one of those sappy Yakuza dramas, the look of somebody in love, and that may escape her sister's attention but it could never, ever escape hers.

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><p>Her school let them all go home too early today, and there was nobody left at home so her big sister had said that she should stay with her instead. But she still had to go to other classes, after all, and so Kumiko-oneesama had taken her to the rooftop and told the student there – he was the same one, the guy she had seen looking at her sister on that one dinner many months ago. There was a magazine over his head, and his tone was cold, his words even more clipped than when she'd last heard him, if it was possible.<p>

If Hoshi didn't know better, she'd think that this Sawada guy was her big sister's jilted suitor who had gone on the date – the one her brothers and uncle were talking about this morning, yes, she does listen in – merely to make her jealous.

Her big sister, fuming, turns away from the redhead and turns her attention to Hoshi instead, telling her to be careful and that if the older guy ever tries anything weird she'd better hurl him off the roof. The younger girl didn't know what that meant, but she had nodded anyway, and then Big Sister Kumiko was gone.

The guy – her sister's favorite student, if her opinion was to be counted in any way – takes the magazine off his face, walks up to her, takes something from his pocket, and hands her something. It is an mp3 player, and he mumbles something about how Yankumi had said she liked listening to music. The smaller girl smiles a miniscule smile, and follows his descent through the staircase.

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><p>He repeats the exact same story she had heard at breakfast this morning, but Mister Sawada does not use the same terminology her uncles and brothers used to describe things. It is all the same, however, in terms of context; a date gone awry, only omitting the part where he had ran into her sister, because she was a Yakuza heiress by that time and nobody here was supposed to know that.<p>

…well. Except maybe for him.

Actually, they had been wrong. Hoshi did not like listening to music. She only liked leaving the headphones on because when they were on, nobody would ever think she was listening. Kumiko-oneesama had always taken to giving her a pair when they were going to talk for "grown-up things"; from what she had picked up, it was merely Yakuza business and stuff, and she knew that she wasn't supposed to listen in, and so she decided to just listen in when she thought something interesting, which was rare. Like now.

One of his classmates had hemmed and hawed for a moment before asking the redhead she sat beside the question she'd always wanted to ask him herself: "Have you fallen in love with Yankumi?" His other classmates had gone into collective shock at that, and had come up with various arguments denying such feelings the other man might have had towards their homeroom teacher, but it did nothing to change the fact that he had turned her direction for a second (probably to check if she wasn't listening, she was sure of that), turned around, and told him "I think so," which was, by her mental archives, the closest thing they could get to him ever saying yes.

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><p>Today was just like every other day at the Kuroda residence, the only place where Hoshi would ever think of calling her home. The man she calls her grandfather is at the head of the table, the man she calls her uncle at his right side and the younger man (who, in her head, she has also taken to calling her brother) at his left. There is the woman she calls her big sister, and the lawyer in charge of their family who her big sister calls her crush and 'one true love'. There are the men she calls her big brothers, and there is the cacophony of stuffed animals behind her grandfather that reminds her just how much this family means to her.<p>

She fingers the package wrapped in paper under the table, and for once her big sister is quick to notice. "What is that, Hoshi-chan?" she asks. "Let me guess, that's another one for your collection, isn't it?"

Hoshi nods, and decides to keep silent for the moment. She only adds an animal when she sees the person related to it so much that she considers it family; nobody knows this, or maybe they all know and Big Sister's the only one who doesn't, and she'd rather it stay this way, at least, for the next few hours.

Everybody watches as she stands up and brings the package to the spot behind Grandfather and Uncle Kyo and her someday-soon-to-be Big Brother, with different expressions on their faces. Before she could bring herself to unwrap the stuffed animal, however, she turns to her big sister and said, "Before, you had told me that ever since the ancient times, the dragon has been the only one able to stand beside the tiger." Her big sister had blushed, because that, after all, was true, and it was the reason that Mister Shinohara's representation on the mini-shrine was a dragon, and Hoshi thinks that he knows that already, because she can see the lawyer blush, but she decides not to think too much of it for now.

"Sister, I think for once, you were wrong."

Her fingers peel off the scotch tape, tearing the paper in places, but she doesn't mind, and neither do they; instead, their expressions differ even more when they realize just what exactly she means, what exactly she means with that fluff-filled furry animal whose color reminds them of sunset – everyone except her big sister maybe, who, as usual, does not get it.

So instead, Hoshi decides to look at her, over the flushing face of the student in front of her, the looks of understanding her grandfather and uncle share, and drive her point home with her next words.

"Did you know, sister?" Hoshi says, as she sets down the stuffed lion beside the tiger with an air of finality about it. "I've always wanted to have myself a cute brother-in-law."

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><p><strong>fin.<strong>

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><p><strong>AN: **So, well. My first-ever OC fic other than the Philippines OC I use for Hetalia. This was solely meant to be a writing exercise to get me to write a *normal* Shinkumi fic, since that's what I do, actually: insert some OC into the story of the characters I want to play with in my head for the sole reason of getting myself to understand what makes that particular pair tick.

When I get stable enough to handle them correctly, or something close to correctly, I write a new fic, without the OC this time, and it goes from there. But for some reason, I can't get this idea out of my head, so I decided to keep it this way.

I hope there is someone, somewhere, out there who would like this, even if I am aware that this is so far from all of my previous works. However, the idea of the last line…was actually the only reason why I kept on typing, though. orz This was a blitz fic done in thirty minutes. Rather surprising for me, as it reached 1651 words without my even realizing. Also, see how this is one of my few fics that did not include song lyrics. =w=

That being said, thanks for reading.Loads of hugs to all who actually remotely liked it, or took the time to read through this late-night catastrophe of mine! ^_^

**Reviews are loved and appreciated. **


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